


Mermithidae

by spiderstanspiderstan



Series: Lycosidae [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Brunch, Fluff, Gen, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, concrit wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:12:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9533084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderstanspiderstan/pseuds/spiderstanspiderstan
Summary: This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. Romanoff was a difficult topic in herself, and Peter an emotionally needy limpet who clung to anyone who gave him the tiniest amount of positive reinforcement. Even if that anyone was a backstabbing assassin.





	

Tony was starting to feel a little guilty.

He’d figured, hey, Augustine is pretty subdued. The staff didn’t ask too many questions and the decor wasn’t overwhelming. He could take a stranger there without starting too much drama, which was a rare gift in a restaurant. And Peter would probably benefit from eating something other than his normal diet. Given that it consisted of 'sugar and carbs, as much and as fast as biologically possible,' his body would welcome any break from the norm.

Peter was looking at the menu the same way people in Lovecraft looked upon Cthulhu.

“What is… fo- fu—” he said quietly, then gave up, twirled the menu around and pointed to the word.

“Focaccia,” Tony answered. “It’s a type of bread. But that’s not important. I could get them to make you a grilled cheese, or something. The food isn’t the focal point here.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, sounding very serious. “I’m not gonna waste this opportunity. I can make a grilled cheese at home. I can’t make fo-catcha. Especially not the kind they have here.”

“Okay, sure,” Tony said. “But that’s still not the point.”

This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation, partially because Romanoff was a difficult topic in herself, and partially because Peter was starved for self-esteem and clung to anyone who gave him the tiniest amount of positive reinforcement like an emotionally needy limpet. Even backstabbing assassins.

“What’s vegan ‘a’-‘i’-with-dots-over-it-’o’-’l’-’i’?” Peter asked. “I know that it’s- there’s ...salad involved, but—”

“Aïoli,” Tony clarified. “It’s made of garlic and olive oil. Just— order something you recognise. Point is, Natasha.”  

Peter froze for a fraction of a second at the name. He _oozed_ tells, all twitchy body language and terrified eyes. Tony hadn’t had formal training like Nat, just a lot of experience, and he could interpret it like large print.  

“What about Natasha?” he asked.  

“Why you need to be avoiding her,” Tony said. Peter’s eyebrows drew together. “And not _listening_ to her.”

“You tapped my phone.” It wasn’t even a question, more of an irritated statement.

“No, I tapped hers.” Tony shrugged. “She knows. She doesn’t care.”

It was a little out of character for Natasha to use the same device twice, outside of anything issued by her handlers when she had them. The surveillance meant nothing to her, because— knowing Natasha— she thought she would keep getting away with it. Despite the fact that Ross still had people after her. Despite the fact that Peter’s suit was technological hi-viz and he carried it everywhere like an extremely expensive security blanket. She was outright stating that she’d outsmart them all.

“Why _can’t_ I talk to her?” Peter asked. He toyed with the cuff of his closest-to-fancy shirt, and Tony prayed he wouldn’t put it in his mouth. Peter was like a puppy sometimes. He _chewed_ things.

“Because she’s a world-class manipulator,” Tony said. “You’re not really evenly matched.”

Peter just about pouted at him, doing this weird, semi-voluntary thing with his eyes that made him look like a child in a charity ad.

“I can pick up a _bus_ ,” he protested. “And, like, the vast majority of people still don’t know who I am. I— I have a good skillset.”

He was always trying so hard to look credible, as if he didn’t have time to breathe. The learning curve would only get steeper, and he didn’t seem to have realised that.

“She watched the Berlin wall come down,” Tony said. “ _In Berlin_. She’s been working on her ‘skillset’ for longer than you’ve been alive. I’m not saying you’re a problem. I’m saying she is.”

Peter tapped his fork on the table, the motion as repetitive as a cyclical loading symbol.

“What do you think she’s going to do?” he asked. “Honestly. If— if she was gonna kill me, or...like, kidnap me, she would have already.”

“She wouldn’t kill you. And she’d make it so she wouldn’t have to kidnap you,”  There wasn’t a good way to phrase any of this. “Talking to her is…risky. There’s a lot you couldn’t be trusted with if you were in regular contact. And, no offense, but you’re an easy target for her. She’s spent decades learning to read people, and you’re not even an open book at this point. You’re easier than that. You’re a billboard. You’re _skywriting_.”

“But why—” Peter relented to his nerves and started nipping at the skin around his bitten-down nails. “Hypothetically, even if I _was_ so— if I was willing to do something like that, I just don’t feel like I got anything to offer her, you know? She’s _really good at this_ . And, like, like— I'm…not. Yet! I'm not at her level _yet_.”

Sometimes Tony wondered if the kid was aware how much of a walking guilt-trip he could be.

Peter's idea of _her level_ probably didn’t include training in avoiding what Natasha did. There was a lot of skill in keeping her out of your head. It wasn’t even malicious half the time. Just a matter of how she’d learned to interact.

“Well, from where I’m standing, you have a lot of your own appeal,” Tony explained. “You have your technology, and you’re very, very powerful. You’re not too street-smart but your IQ is a major advantage. And you’re still new enough to all of this that you’re… flexible _._ And even if _she_ has good intentions— which I doubt— the people tailing her probably don’t.”

Peter had a guilt complex beyond his years. If anyone decided to take advantage of that, then…

It’d taken Tony ten minutes to get him to agree to Germany.

What would someone else do with him?

“I _guess…_ ” Peter said, like he didn’t really believe it. “Does bourbon syrup taste like _syrup_ -syrup or bourbon, ‘cause, I don’t know what bourbon tastes like?”

After food had been ordered, and Peter had gone from looking suspicious of Tony’s talking points to looking suspicious of his French toast, the conversation continued.

“I just don’t understand what you’re expecting to get from her.” Tony said, in-between bites of his eggs cardinal. “She’s not going to teach you anything I can’t. If you want to learn… I don’t know, capoeira, I can _take you to Brazil_ to learn capoeira, and  won’t try and pick information out of you in return for it.”

Peter took one bite of his French toast and started _gazing_ at it like it’d offered to pay his college tuition, buy him a car, and arrange a date to Paris for him and Emma Watson.

“Will you also buy me more of this?” he said, pointing to the toast with his fork, semi-serious. “Nah, it’s just— I don’t like… I don’t wanna call it _charity_ , but, sorta… costing you lots. I mean, it isn’t— it’s not lots to _you—_ except, like, kinda, lots of time, but—”

He gave up on talking, cramming cut-up squares of toast in his mouth instead, blinking up at Tony like he was trying to apologise in Morse code.

Tony sighed.

“Look, this isn’t charity, okay?” he said. “It is a _willing investment_. You’re paying me back by being more effective at what you do and less likely to die. Hanging around with Natasha makes you significantly more likely to die.”

It was a blunt way to put it, sure, but Tony was no stranger to mental gymnastics. Sometimes bluntness was necessary.  

“She… seems nice,” Peter said, sounding doubtful. He broke the sentence over a sip of fresh-pressed guava juice, holding the glass like it might break at any moment. “I mean. For someone whose job is being sneaky and punching stuff.”

“Nice,” Tony deadpanned. He pulled up a file on his phone, some of the nicer parts of what had leaked when Natasha poured her history— among other things—onto the internet, and slid it across the table. “She’s a _murderer_ , Peter. She’s not nice.”

“I know that,” Peter said. “I _know_ her history. I’m— I’m not stupid, okay? I just— I give people chances, is all. You can’t tell me not to give people chances.”

He flipped through the file all the same, momentarily abandoning the toast to do so.  

Natasha had a long and nasty history of worming her way into people and turning their traits against them. The Widow moniker had never really suited her. She’d come out more like a parasitic wasp.

It was a great thing, provided she was on your side.

“Maybe this is an alliance.” Peter said, grasping at straws like his life depended on it. “She’s— she isn’t working with you but she’s not, like, with Steve any more. I— maybe she just doesn’t, like— she might not _like_ you? I don’t know. You— y-you can’t assume she’s malicious this time _just_ ‘cause she murdered people.”

He’d already invested a lot, it seemed. In terms of time and effort, maintaining any sort of relationship with Natasha was _expensive_. Secrecy cost a lot.

And nobody liked being proved wrong.

“The survival rate of her allies is almost as bad as her victims’. I don’t know how Clint did it,” Tony said. “Look, you made a mistake. That’s okay. Mistakes are inevitable. I’m trying to tell you that you have _options_.”

“What options, though?” Peter dragged a square of toast through the small lake of syrup on his plate. “‘Ignore her’ or ‘yell at her until she leaves’?”

“You can train for this sort of thing, and keep doing it, if you’re willing to risk that,” Tony said. “Or you can get away from the assassin and forget that this ever happened. If you really prefer _her_ , you have every right to switch.”

The circles Natasha moved in tended to be ever-shrinking, as her contacts fell off the map or, more often, were killed. It wasn’t the sort of environment anyone should be in, let alone the team’s token innocent.

Tony maintained a practiced expression of indifference while desperately hoping that Peter would make the right choice, the _safe choice._ He didn’t have a backup plan.

Peter spent a moment considering the options, his free hand drumming softly on the white tablecloth. He tapped the screen of Tony’s phone again and skimmed something, his eyes following the lines.

  
“If— if I stop… _associating_ with her,” he said, “can you make sure she can’t get to me?”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on my new fic tumblr [here!](http://na-no-why-mo.tumblr.com)


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